1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to management of media; and, more particularly, to management of interactive media that is distributed to mobile devices.
2. Related Art
Cell (mobile) phones are widely used as mobile devices to communicate anywhere in the world. Some of them are very simple devices capable of voice communication alone. Many other today's mobile devices are used for multiple purposes, other than voice communication, in any convenient location. They keep record of appointments and schedules, store addresses, present calendars, surf Internet, play games among many other purposes. They are capable of playing music and other audio clips, and also play video clips and movies. They can be networked with external devices such as other mobile phones, laptops and personal computers and modems via infrared, Bluetooth and wifi interfaces. This enormously increases their functionality when compared to just few years ago.
Very few mobile devices are capable of displaying interactive media. Very few servers are equipped with the technologies and tools needed to distribute interactive media and adequately support user interactions—they are more likely to just support download by user of streaming content, such as a video from YouTube or a song from iTunes server. Users are therefore forced to passively watch video clips delivered from YouTube service or passively listen to songs downloaded from servers such as iTunes servers and others of that kind.
Today's mobile devices have extensive processing ability and capable accomplishing many tasks that were usually meant for personal computer alone. However, battery life is always a concern, with batteries needing to be charged every couple of days. Some modern mobile devices have wide screens with alpha numeric keyboards and many soft (programmable) keys. These devices are programmable and have ability to download programs such as XML (eXtensible Markup Language) files and run them on mobile devices. These programs accomplish many tasks such as managing daily tasks, assisting marketing, keeping data and files stored, managing databases etc. However, today the range of these programs are very limited and they accomplish far less tasks than there is demand among people.
The iTunes service from Apple Corp. provides a server based music distribution service. However, it does not distribute interactive media, or other content created by/for enterprises, content providers, etc. The YouTube service provided by Google Inc. makes it possible for users t upload videos taped by them, and other users to download it or view it on the web. However, it does not provide interactive media, and it does not provide surveys based on interactive media, and in addition, it does not provide means to manage interactive media.
Microsoft Content Management Server facilitates storing and distributing content, but it does not seem to support management of interactive media, the management of the distribution of interactive media, gathering user responses for those interactive media, sending the user responses to content and service providers, providing report generation facilities for user responses collected, etc.
Thus there is a need in the market for a management server for managing interactive media, the distribution of interactive media. There is a need for a management server one that not only supports distributing interactive media by one or more servers, but also facilitates gathering user responses for those interactive media, sending the user responses to content and service providers, providing report generation facilities for user responses collected, etc. There is need for a management server for interactive media that helps manage the life-cycle of interactive media, and subscription to services that provide interactive media, and billing associated with distributing interactive media—all the features provided by the present invention.
These and other limitations and deficiencies associated with the related art may be more fully appreciated by those skilled in the art after comparing such related art with various aspects of the present invention as set forth herein with reference to the figures.